the runaways
by vagabondmari
Summary: Original AU. &.* and at the end of the day who's going to believe you? a life as irrelevant as the seconds in the day. not known, with a face now unforgettable.
1. premise

This overall, is a sentiment to those that haven't given up and for those that see darkness, light is around the corner, even if it's the tiniest slip of crescent moon light hidden among a universe of cloud.

"Every day may not be good, however there is goodness in every day."

premise.

A single scream echoed through the towering forest, soaking into newly dampened trees courtesy of the previous four-hour downpour now reduced to a mere drizzle. Mud slurched under tired worn out K-MART boots, the thin soles a reminder that the stressed footwear would allow the days puddles an entry to cheap cloth and bare skin sure to blister after pruning like a sponge. However, beaten-up shoes were always a preference over a destroyed soul, a broken down home- civilisation. In common knowledge, a rainbow would appear after the dissonance of a deluge, however with large eucalyptus and maple trees casting a canopy among an inundation of foliage, a mere glimpse of hope with a sight of atmospheric solar spectrum would come as another generation's blue moon passed. An impossibility to the present.

However, the will to continue on, would remain as it had previously, unstoppable in the face of disaster. For they were the runaways; hunted, haunted and above all heroes to their own stories.

It's hard to explain how everything ended up this way, a life expected prosperous at birth reduced to a faded footprint and an exaggerated tell-all tale, told by corrupt government organisations in desperate need of a hobby, in desperate need of a cover-up. And, what would it matter if a child of the state; - foster children, took the abrasive cut? Their stories never known, merely a blip of time to over thirty foster carers, all reported to be a nuisance unable to be controlled, unable to sit still in the face of constant humiliation, their existence a pay check or a maid's position, albeit advertised with straight pearly white teeth and smiles that could rival a young pageant queen's, lives saved by kindred souls and organisations from neglect, abuse and mere abandonment. In reality, those lives died each night to face the oncoming onslaught of days, weeks and months of similar fates.

Those fates easily manipulated and altered to fit any story needing to be told, and now those few selected lives were flailing in puddles caused by a four hour downpour in the middle of a forest that no-one knew the name of. Those fates officially Canada's most wanted. All entwined with a lie. All perfectly forgettable until now.


	2. chapter one

chapter one.

In my head this had always played out like a paracosm, a desperate delve into a fantasy realm to escape a morbid and terrifying reality of never being wanted. Well; this particular scenario didn't play out but those centred around running did. I guess that had always been easier, to runaway rather than stick and fight it out to the bloody death. In what universe had I been born for sticking around? Was that a human trait I possessed? No. Neither had it been my parents, I suppose that you could consider that my family gene, I wonder if you could program that into a DNA strand, or if it was foreseeable in a molecule? I don't know. Maybe someone could've changed me… Could. The tragic part is, if I didn't have the capability or knack for running, I probably wouldn't be here. Alive. Breathing… I'm almost certain somewhere on a crooked, cheap piece of concrete, Mari Bronte, would lie written in Times New Roman with a date of birth and decease, no comment, no company. Some days I think that may have been easier to be a name on a rock, hell it would've saved a lot of time, but as fantastic as I am at running away, I am at figuring out another way. Surviving another singular, torrentially turbulent day.

I desperately want to fathom how everything became so; - messy. However, somehow there's no complete answer to that, if you asked each of us, you'd get a much different response per subject, few believe that it's actually their own fault that brought them to this point, I know Dante thinks that he's cursed, Brenna on the other hand wouldn't mind throwing a molitov cocktail through the Federal Government's window, on each floor, although he doesn't speak of it, I think Cam would follow along in suit, I've always pictured him doing such, just getting even. Not that murder is justified, yet somehow it makes perfect sense. They'd taken everything we were, just not physically. Who were we mentally? We weren't. We existed with anger coursing through our veins, the way anguish pulsated through every membrane. To say we didn't hope for something better would be a lie, silently I think that we were all here for more. That maybe, in a glimmer of luck, our lives could be reinstated or wiped clean, anything for civilized normality. I can't even tell you how much I miss an actual bed, forest floors are quaint however will never amount to that of an actual bed, even if it were a single musty old thing.

This was the sort of outcome that thrilled at the Cineplex, that made box office ratings and millionaire paychecks, however, a reality rather than fiction despite how much the five of us wished intensely that it was. I've always imagined, that in some former life, I was Jack the Ripper, slaughtering women in London Town, or some Hitler like character, for I could never fathom what lives they were reincarnated into if this is what I, a seventeen-year-old, underachieving, too sarcastic for her own tongue, femme un clutz achieved. That after seventeen mediocre, perfectly forgettable years if you don't count nine months in the womb of some incredibly incompetent woman that is—that, I was everything as memorable as those formerly mentioned. A terrorist.

In some sense, each name fades to black, achieving a spot in history; a debate topic for every class in school revised once a year; 'what was he? A madman or a genius?' My answer obviously coming back to bite me in the ass as it found itself broadcasted over every television network through most of the globe I could only assume, a genius. Back tracking the small decisions I'd made throughout my existence to date, crawling over and playing house seemed like a superior choice, however assuming that I'd led the 'good girl' life, there was one variable that was insolent, the origin of this story, because when you commence an existence as nothing; much like a child left at a fire station and processed into the system as a fake name and estimated date of birth; an enigma, you can be absolutely anyone.

For the most part forge ahead under a predetermined identity expecting some sense of relative normality, the societal schedule with an undertone of personality, elementary school, middle— high, university, maybe a gap year, a summer job, children, a career, a wedding, growing old… The same mediocre stop gap of pure, non-individualistic individualism. Or, a life of adventure like those in television shows and movies, a Russian sleeper spy or covert operative, or perse a group of five mislead teenagers teaming with a radical terrorist organization, poached in their prime and mighty pissed off at the United States of America. I can inform you now, if we weren't before, we sure as hell are now.

Suppose you wanted to understand this entirely, grasp how inexplicably and tumultuously complicated this whole charade was, presume you saw underneath the perfectly articulated news broadcasts;- a conspiracist, I would have to start from the very start, before the authorities came knocking down cheap wooden doors, before sunglasses and hoodies became a new face with hair no longer matching it's biology… The place we all met. Where our fates become an unknown certainty, and I would guess that that was the question, was it predestined by outside measures, the five of us meeting, was it foretold before we entered the group homes gates, manipulated and set in motion or an entire coincidence not decided until years later, held together like superglue on the fluke that our merry band of emotionally exhausted teens clicked.


End file.
